Living Pelicana: Nino Corleone Explains New Women’s Collection, Salutes Married To The Mob & Hellz Bellz

Vixen

There are two definite rules to winning: Your product must be awesome and product placement is everything. After XXL revealed their July/August cover to the hip-hop heads, all eyes were on Wayne… Well, Wayne’s FLI PELICAN t-shirt. The gray, long-sleeved tee with the phrase “NO SUCKA S##T” etched across it was a win for the Atlanta-based streety luxury clothing brand that preaches living a Pelicano lifestyle. The four-year-old collection started from a creative restlessness in 26-year-old Detroit, Michigan native Nino Corleone who designed the line, with the help of blog manager Gregorio il, artist Arezzo Gatti and brand manager Dreq Capone, to the respected and recognized biz it is today. Their goal is to take street wear and blend it with luxury garments and materials, and if you’re a fly individual, you definitely know about these four Pelicans. As them promoting their latest line Pelicano: Made In America (for men and women), Nino tells VIBE Vixen about his plans for the exclusive women’s line, Pelicana.

Do you actually have a line for women or is it men’s tees that women can actually wear?
Yeah we actually do. FLI PELICAN is split into two smaller divisions. I won’t say smaller in terms of size its, just two different divisions.With FLI PELICAN being the whole street wear type of look, Pelicano is cleaner and has a purple label look. We are working on a tuxedo right now for evening wear. For the younger crowd, that’s going to the prom and need something to wear, they can still wear FLI PELICAN and look good. Pelicana is the women’s department; its still going to have our flavor on it but it is still going to be edgy enough so that women will wear it. I hate seeing men do women’s lines, and then it be like y’all just did that to have women’s shirts. I’m trying to do something full-blown so that I can run with the Married To The Mob and Hellz Bellz. All the lines that I actually like that are women lines.

Right. Women like the stuff that comes out of Supreme and all those places, and we need more clothing like that for us. I think that’s gonna be hot. Do you have pieces already for the women?
Yeah, we do. We just finished a collection of swimsuits that’s how far along we been already. We got t-shirts, hats, leggings. Our denim program is going to be for men and women.

So tell me more about Pelicano: Made In America?
That Pelicano/Pelicana. What people probably don’t know is for years now, we have been making FLI PELICAN ourselves inside of America. We manufacture everything ourselves, and even when we outsource, we outsource to American manufacturers. So we keep everything inside. With that photoshoot, I wanted to show evolution so that’s why they are standing at the top of the mountain looking over like they are about to start building from the ground up.

Read the full interview here and check out the Pelicano: Made In America collection after the jump…